 Let's see. Where to start? Okay. There are a lot of homeless people here in Northeast or North West Vermont and We're spread all over the city. So we got together some of us to try to Bring this city attention to the mayor and the governor and and the public and This is only a portion of the homeless people in Burlington I know Three times as many that stay in other places. We won't have anything to do with this public demonstration It's a peaceful thing. We're not trying to hurt anybody, but we want to bring it to the attention of the public and the officials that run this How long have you been a homeless person since 1984 and why are you homeless? I'm disabled. I'm not able to work Oh on a full-time basis and and you can't get an apartment if you're making $80 a week In fact, you can't get an apartment if you're making 200 a week in Burlington And you can stay in places like the way station or the North Street shelter but It's limited and it's it's difficult living anyway I Know for sure last night they were full because I tried to get a room in there I wanted to take a shower and change my clothes Can you describe what the conditions are in the shelters in Burlington? It's Just basically a place to get out of the weather Full of night and they're crowded and they're crowded. They're overcrowded right and and I know The way station holds 40 people and I'm not sure how many North Street holds, but I Know three times that number they're sleeping in boxcars or tents Abandoned cars and are these people local people or do they come from other places majority or local really? Yeah And so what's being done about this to help you absolutely nothing And why not I don't know that's why we're demonstrating we want something done if they You know find us a farm or something or a building that we could inhabit It would be a big help, you know, we don't have the resources some of us are physically impaired some are mentally or emotionally and Some are just Alcoholically And there are a bunch of us though that would take a job if we could get one But when you when you go for a job interview and I say where do you live? Battery park, you know, I don't think I'm gonna hire you So what kind of things do you hear people saying about you? Uh The majority don't say anything you get a few loudmouths. It'll put you down or a few People that help like the food shelf and the way station. They'll help but they can only do so much and The rest you got to do on your own and now the weather happens to be fine today, but if it was raining And we'll get rained on and it's snowing even it's snowed on and if it's Zero you're gonna get cold Okay, thanks, Jean. Thank you. I don't I didn't hear you. Lauren Glenn Nice to meet you portion of the homeless population Really, they see the box cars everywhere over the bank and battery park and Hallways abandoned cars It's amazing. I mean, it's not amazing, but people don't know Yeah, it's the people people should know and Not that you know, some of them are mental cases, you know Waterbury closed down and they give them a check and send them out What's going on out here in City Hall Park well, we're here making a statement. We're homeless people And we're saying that Wellington in the state of Vermont is in a in fact the whole nation is in a crisis situation with its homeless population We're here making a statement not only talking about some of our problems but some of the solutions that we see as well as being one way of alleviating the problem one of those things is a research found for homeless people Where they can be proud of something while they become productive around their individual trips to work cooperatives and found cooperatives The point of fact is that in this nation? We've seen a lot of stuff go down the drain and it's still going down the drain Things like losing 157 pounds every day in the United States last year of a mart loss 10% of our farms This year we're losing an average of one farmer every day The homeless population in Billington is more than tripled in the last year And we believe that minimum wage is the major cause of that Minimum wage we believe should be five dollars and thirty-two cents if it kept up with the rate inflation since 1937 when it became law reality situation is that you could work a full week And at minimum wage earn a hundred and thirty-eight dollars and because the average house in Brillington Average apartment in Brillington is running about four hundred dollars This means you have to take a hundred dollars over your paycheck just for shelter and leave thirty-eight dollars to pay for Taxes and anger counseling fees because you can't afford to feed your kids The reality the situation is that that 36% of this nation's homeless population is veterans We've lost more veterans to suicide if you include single car accidents Then then we lost her in the war itself in Vietnam We're veterans. I'm a veteran We're out to make a scrap of minimum wage being so low But we're also being we're also willing to be more compassionate with the business community than they have been with us We're saying that we want a five dollars and thirty cents minimum wage by 1991 But with a instant Cost of living adjustment on a now so that the inflation rate goes out the business community raises their prices Anticipate in anticipation of us getting more money at least we can still live that's part of the things that we're talking about The other thing is we're talking about is that we believe that Office of Economic Opportunity Has been a total failure it started some 24 years ago under President Lyndon Johnson's great society program the war on poverty In those days homelessness Poverty domestic abuse the rising crime rate the rising violence in our society all of those things We're much smaller than they are today You take homelessness for instance we went from a few hundred thousand homeless in in 1964 to more than three million today with another four to six on the verge of it mainly because of minimum wage We're seeing our mental institutions mainstreaming people onto the streets ill-prepared to survive in the streets Basically they give them a pill and stick them out in the streets And if they don't take their pills they go wacko and and you have all kinds of things going on We're not really taking care of any of our problems, and we're trying to make our government open up and see that We have real problems with our country's priorities And we look at the graph behind me on the on the hill which shows things like housing Health education and low-income housing all easily fitting on the graph But the orange banner that goes across the lawn up there represents military spending And we contend that the only reason why so much money is going into that is because you can't see where It's going and you have to ask ourselves how many lieutenant criminals and above is running around with 30 million dollar Swiss bank accounts The other side of it is we're a little tired of Reagan hood taking from the needy and given to the greedy there's a place there where we're Americans and we are family we do take care of ourselves and We're going to make minimum wage an issue in this next campaign We're veterans and we're declaring war on that minimum wage is outrageously low What kind of response have you gotten to this proposal about minimum wage? Well from the government ages and stuff they're stormwalling us of course we met with the governor yesterday we demonstrate in front of her house She came out for ten minutes, and she really is an expert at manipulating the media. Unfortunately. She came out and she made all her points about visiting with the You know having the the state workers come out and do a survey of our needs Obviously, she thinks that the way to solve our needs is by each one of us Finding out what the needs are and then taking care of us, but that's taking care of this view here That's not taking care of the bulk of the situation now the root causes of the situation And she spent about 10 minutes and said that Sunday was her day for her family Well, she doesn't realize the irony of the situation because she had her family to see but yet most of us are homeless and we don't have families and she said she was taking her son someplace and she was leaving and she definitely implied that That she wish we would leave too We stayed after she left that we made our statements and then we left and we came back here and then last night we was on a radio show for an hour and Did quite a thing and gave a more positive image of what we're doing. Do you feel that this encampment? Has helped the visibility of your issue of the homeless population Well, I certainly hope so the point of fact is that there's anywhere from 18 to 22 people homeless people staying here each night But yet Wellington's emergency stops or the way station has been consistently all but one or two beds full So that means that anywhere from 18 to 20 of us this winner Maybe not us because who gets in the shot its first comes at first serve So who gets in the shelter first is the one that that stays inside for the night But what happens to those other 18 to 20 people, you know What happens to the people that you don't see here like up at Red Rock and up in Milton and up at North Beach and and All over the state. No, not these Kingdom of Earth people's practice families up there this living there's people homeless people all over the state and yet with the the homeless assistant act which was passed by the legislative by Congress last year Was designed to alleviate some of these programs But then when you look at the way the money comes down, this has historically been the problem right along There's all kinds of money coming to those proposal for Chittenden County for instance alone for $400,000 for primary health and substance abuse programs counseling But yet for the entire state for the first year's funding there's only $95,000 and with the two-year funding that's coming down There is no plans for any additional beds anywhere and that's why the law was passed and we think it's outrageous The whole idea of government is to ignore the problem Hope people will go south to someplace else for the winter and that's what's happening all over the country Everybody's following the same idea of ignoring the problem. It'll go someplace else The problem is you have a constant shifting population of homeless people who go from one state to another and find no help anywhere So when you say that the homeless population is tripled since last year Are those Burlington people? Yes the the way station did a survey on the kinds and numbers of people that have been Living in the shelter and they found out that 85 to 90 percent of the people that stay in the shelter come from Vermont One of the other things that we're advocating by the way is that many many rural areas in Vermont is ignoring the problem and they're coming to Burlington at present Burlington is is covering that cost One of the things we're advocating is that the legislative passed a law that says if a homeless person comes from a city in town of Vermont To Burlington or some other emergency shelter that city or town should be responsible for that person's upkeep because the cost per day This is another outrageous thing the cost per day We've heard figures of $50 a day per person per homeless person. That's $350 a week Give me $350 a week. I won't be homeless anymore. That's the truth of that The most of it's because it's going into staff What would you like to see happen immediately? Well, what we'd like to see have happened immediately is One a day center in Burlington so people and I'm not forced to wander the streets all went along look for one place to be The real truth of the matter is living in a homeless shelter like the way station is very difficult You're living with 40 people in one room men and women in one room and there's all of that entails from hacking and coughing to Smelly feet to getting up all night long to go to the bathroom So you leave there ill-prepared to do a day's work the next morning when you have to leave at 8 o'clock in the morning So you'd like a day shelter. What other things we'd like to shade day shelter And we would like to see something done somewhere in the state about more beds All right, we recognize the problem the Burlington sees and that we are attracting people because we do have a shelters Unfortunately the shelters are full and many people come here and they're going to suffer this one up One of the things that we would like to do before November is get that research found So we can siphon off some of the people off the street and out into the country where they can mellow out and take a Look at their lives. How are you going to put together this research for him? Well, we have we have all been discussing it and and all the people here that are camping out here and a good and the rest of the homeless population There are a few people that are inquisitive and and don't quite know They've got burned so many times with different programs that the government has proposed that they don't trust things So we hope that what we're going to do is invite people to come and visit and see what we're doing and see if it's something for them But the place will have no no alcohol no drugs and we're going to be self-supporting We're going to raise our own food and provide our own shelters right there So where's the money for this going to come from? I don't know but I know we got a cause to get it and we're going to do it The people the homeless people in Burlington wanted they want to get off the streets The business community wants is off the street they're constantly shooting is out of their each out of their businesses and buildings and Forcedness to walk around the streets and all they can do is look at us with negative looks and say you're lazy bums The point of fact is you can't live working in Burlington at the rate that they want to pay us My husband and my two children We were living up in Swanton God Had an apartment and then one man we haven't one man. We don't The landlord was going to raise the rent and with the income that we have we just couldn't pull it so For that you went in storage some Little pieces got knick-dacks and stuff got sold And we just packed up and moved into our van Came down this way we started out with Campgrounds first I'm Grand Isle and then then we came down this way and we went to Burlington housing and filled out their blasted papers And they told us that one piece stayed there Take the other two back with you and mail them to Montpelier and wait for an answer And I asked them what kind of an answer and they said well, they'd be put on the list I said what are you talking about put on a list? I said we're out. We have our homeless They said I have children. I said, what are we supposed to do just fill out the form and leave it with us And we'll put you on the list. I said This is unreal. I said so I handed them the paper They laughed at my face when I asked them about putting us in something or someplace because we knew that there's at least 12 to 14 empty apartments and Rory what do they call it down on North Avenue the housing project No, yeah Franklin Square housing down there and she says well, there's no priority I said it's emergency situation. She said we're gonna emergency to us is Even being flood out or burnt out. I said homeless is nothing. They said no that doesn't mean anything So I just handed them the paper and waited around a week later. I get a notice in the mail This is a way we're put on number 63 waiting for Housing for a house of some sort and we're put on for a number 80 on the list for The low-income section 8 part It's this is a bummer is this is unreal they won't they don't want to do anything we Homeless and that's it. We're not a priority. We're not What else you call it? This is the pits. I mean We've had it. We've been in low spots before but not to the point where we couldn't find housing But what our income in the rising of rents you just you can't pull it There's no no way in Hades. You can do it. So you've found other people in the same situation. Yes, we did We were down in North Beach camping out down there and there was around two or three Individuals that were out they couldn't afford housing either. We ran into a couple of families down there with With kids one one family had a four-year-old daughter and I think a little boy is not quite a year But they were they were lucky they they were able to get some help of some sort and found a place the other couple They had a three-year-old boy and a one and a half year old girl And when we left the campgrounds they were still there and we don't know where they went And then we were told later that there's other people all over not just in Burlington There's in Milton and they're all over the place and it's families. It isn't single people. There's like 500 One person said that they found around 500 people that were homeless and three fours of those 500 people were families with kids And they were with young kids not just kids 8 and 14 like I have But kids that were 10 and underneath the age of 10 it makes it it makes that hard all over Dolly Parton here Are you working I'm under incapacitated claim with the welfare department Bad back blood pressure blood disease Marina for one as well is gonna hire me. So I've been on the welfare roll ever since 1979 We bought a truck to do odd jobs with to relieve the pressure with the welfare department and Landlord jacked our run-up on us and I don't know mother told you all that or not But we just just couldn't afford to pull her in anymore So the thing I think one of the things that's most Difficult for the people don't know is that homeless people are regular people? Definitely that they're not indigent crazy People the earth they want to be like nevermind But no these these people are all most of them are square shooters Ed Roger There's few little small minor details here, but the rest of them are all normal people normal people hurting like hate Hades because Just like the sign says minimum wages clearly creating homelessness because the wages are not high enough for anybody to live on them No way you can't you can't pull it So what would you like to see happen as a result of this? Particular action. Do you have any hopes that something's gonna change? No, we can hold But that's all we can do That's about the size of it. You can't We're hoping that it'll wait wake people up To the point that our we are out here There are homeless and it isn't just individuals as families as people that care just normal human beings You never know when you're gonna Run into this one minute you got an apartment or maybe a house or whatever in the next minute You've got nothing but yourselves or each other We're just normal people Trying to survive Makes it it makes it hard. We're hoping that this will just wake people up and And let them know that we're out here. There's not just us. There's others around that are in the same part but they're afraid to Do any of this what we're doing here Because of retaliation of losing something of what they have Or they're just plain shy. They don't know what to do And it makes it hard. It really does we just hope this wakes more people up changes some laws help change some laws And it's not just for the single person because they Families need to stick together and not be pulled apart and this can pull a family apart But we're not gonna let it One point in time. I went way to Right River Junction. They had a hearing board waiting for me and They threw me out of there Guy said you got no off in business being down here Get out. I got a witness to that Friend of mine that lives out in one of the projects He turned around and he went down there with me. He was a means They asked you there to go to the meeting and he says and then the guy meets you at the door And he says he kicks out he had no right to kick you out. I had to go down. I don't go I had to go down at my own expense and at the time I had a great big crisis or Newport had a gas tank as big as a living room Going down at my own expense and Got thrown out for no reason Like I said, I didn't go down there with the intent to cause any trouble and you just threw me out That's our government. Then he got a complaint because he didn't make it to the meeting Well, you didn't make it to your meeting. There isn't anything we can do for you. Mr. Sears. We didn't hear your side. He said tried to tell you I was kicked out by the guy downstairs And was that doesn't count? You're accuracy your accuracy. So is that your truck up there? Yeah. Yeah Step in. Yeah, that's what mother and I and the kids have been well between the orange tat there. Yeah Right now it's on loan dad. It's on loan dad right now because he didn't have a place to hang his hat and we figured he was Okay, this is a this is a major leaflet we put out it says Demonstration against and camp against homelessness and the low minimum wage And the three things we're mostly concerned about have been low minimum wage which creates homelessness and poverty lack of cooperative halfway houses So people can come to all folks can come back into society And the third item is a research farm run by homeless people and others themselves Out in the country where people can have a home Gardens little houses and things The second issue is very important Was the city of Burlington finance board went down a mo peeler and got No understanding for the commissioner of social welfare Gretchen Morris and the overall Rourke people Apparently Springfield Vermont's having the same thing that Waterbury has turned loose People that are mostly disturbed mentally disturbed. We don't like to use those words exactly Because they're probably less emotionally disturbed and mentally disturbed than the pizza galleys and the Cunans and the Parmolos. I mean a pizza galley can Help break the labor union in the state of Vermont here with the 8th governor salmon some years ago and He can then donate five hundred thousand dollars the University of Vermont But you know, that's what we call healthy mental state. So those three points low minimum wage Lack of cooperative halfway houses that the people then to come out of Waterbury end up in the shelters And we've lost to the summer to died this summer. You can't say directly for the shelters But if you're having mental problems And you don't have a bed to go home to at the same bed every night and you may not even have a bed some nights and You have to be out all day forced to be out all day long and you go back that night You might get a bed You certainly don't get the same bed and then you're in one room with 40 out of the people That does strange things to mental people. So they go into their shell further And I said that's one that died two or three couple weeks ago. She had a good chance of at least being Diagnosed properly if she'd been in a stable existence. I had this from medical authorities Then nobody was there to see her every day every day to see that she was down And we all knew she was down and she got a brain tumor by the time they sent her up the hospital She died that was just about two weeks ago So those are the basic points that were involved. We're here to have fun We got this has got to be a civilized country eventually It's not now we got less and probably less than 50% democracy in this country And when a corporation, you know, like our laws every state's got a law says a corporation as a person Well, you know show me a corporation with two legs two arms They don't exist, but every time you and I go to court with a business that says INC They've got all the money of that business behind them opposed to us And they're immortal besides Because the law says they're perpetual and if you can show me an immortal person they might be around but You know, that's so where you're up against it's big business a few rich run the country And we're not being civilized about it like Sweden Denmark Norway Holland West Germany and France Some way we can do this better. Hopefully any questions. Yeah, I'm interested in the homeless community It seems as transient as it may be. It's fairly tight knit. Is that true? Okay? This is an interesting question to say yes I found more friends and better people interesting the real values in life than the homeless community In my own case, I spent three tours overseas that means in Korea Africa once and back in Korea and these are real poor people at that time as before Korea had the boom in the first time in this country I found people that were So aware of other people like third-world people are is the last year that I've been homeless for a year now A year here in a year of this year is a year homeless and being in jail part-time I find the people much more civilized than anybody middle-class or upper-class or book-learned and That we are we support each other or friends, you know, we have our problems and a lot of fricuses, but there's a real it's just it and You know, we're real edgy about people come around we call them wear suits suits are you know people they're not civilized people and word professionals a dirty word and Things like that, but there's a lot of real You'd summon up after your way. It's just we are a family like it says we're a big family Roger, what would you like to see come out of this encampment? I don't know it comes out of it It's gonna have to come out of the group. We don't have any leaders. We have no spokesperson We're having a meeting tonight. It's our first big public meeting in them Let's let's leave it at that if you come to you know, if you want to get some of the things out of the meeting It's let's leave it to open democracy Do you have anything else you want to add? What do we plug them? Well, let's just say we're in the same this isn't I know some of the homeless people don't agree on this but because But this isn't tied in to what we do overseas Overseas we kill hundreds of thousands and million hundreds of thousands like in Central America now Here it's the same corporations killing tens of thousands tens of thousands Mostly in Boston, New York and the big cities, but they're dying up here, too, and they're dying younger than they should I don't I don't get emotional very often, but I happen to know Sylvia for seven or eight years And she's the one that died two weeks ago Thanks, Roger. Do you want to we do an interview with you? No, I don't want to do any. Okay, thank you Okay, Shirley. Are you part of the encampment? Yes, indeed. Okay Looks like it Ask me questions. I'll tell you okay What's your name? My name is Robert Simpson. Okay, Robert J. Simpson. Yeah, this way Okay, Robert How long have you been homeless? For about seven years. Yeah, and why are you a homeless person? because I'm an alcoholic and And I have had trouble right now. I'm working but I do my best and Because I've had a lot of drug problems Yeah, that's the way it goes With drugs and alcohol. That's the way it ends up. You know, where are you working now right now? I'm working for North Country Landscapers digging holes, you know digging holes and I used to dig Beetles and stuff like that, but now I'm digging holes. It's a real funny thing Why have you joined this encampment? because I believe in a sense that Just to try to help these people out. I really like politically I have a lot of strange political beliefs like I believe I Believe in the contra movement, which is really strange. A lot of people don't believe in that I'm leaning to the right wing and There's a lot of people who can't help themselves that are homeless But there's also I have something to say There's also most of these people in this park can do something for themselves Yeah, I mean, I mean I'm digging holes, right? Anyone of these motherfuckers could get it could get some kind of shovel and shovel and do something You know, I mean I might be 28 years old and doing my my worst my best at times But I'm doing my best right and I have a tent and I live in my tent and I've been living in my tent for years I'm not going to get into my breakup with my wife or anything like that, but I know There's so many jobs around this town. There's no reason for these people to be unemployed What do you think even if they got a job and made minimum wage that they would be able to have a ford to have a home? Course of course and why don't you why don't I I choose to live in the woods? I like I'm waking up in the morning and seeing the Sun You know, that's just the way I am, you know a lot of people I mean homeless folks I mean, I'm sure it towards the end of the You know towards the end of the fall. It's gonna become very cold and I'll have to do something else But as it is right now, you know, you take it day by day that sort of thing They tell you that in a a alcoholics synonymous day by day you live day by day and You work and you make money. I got money You know, so do you and then do you agree with the argument about the minimum wage that Ed put forward? I don't agree on nothing No, my policy is Politically, I know where I stand Policies that's other people to deal with I don't deal with policies. I don't deal with nothing You know, I just live as I live. That's it but I was I have to say to you is There's there is jobs there and minimum wage right now the thing is You can make what's what's minimum wage now what three three 65 or something like that to be 65 355 You sit there and you work 40 hours a week, right? You work 40 hours a week if you're lucky Three at 355 the prices of living are so high that you might as well You might as well, you know, a lot of these a lot of these people would just gave up Because of course, how can you make a living on 355? Really? You can't we gonna sell drugs You're gonna sell dope. You're gonna sell yourself. You know, it's just it gets to be a real Borderline between sanity and sanity and then they wonder then they wonder why they lock people up Up on the street people people are sitting there with maybe one bottle of wine left Maybe a pack of cigarettes. They're sitting there on the street and that maybe that's their whole world right there in scope That's their whole world And I've been there and I am there And but I'm doing better. I'm trying see that's it's a notion if there was some kind of um if there was some kind of You know what I mean like payback like most of these people are Vietnam veterans most of these people have been to wars they've had real heavy-duty things going on in their minds and and The government and the people are treating them like shit They're treating them like shit. They're treating them like there's some kind of fucking bastards some kind of fucking degenerate, you know Generalization Generalized the whole public make them into some kind of fucking box man Make them into a box and then shit can them right and they got people up here at lunas get people at the daily planet Everything else they all got money right and a lot of these people try a lot of these people have been hurt so badly through the process of Trying to get the money and working that maybe some of these people really could use to boost up that that pay You know so they can support their wives and their kids and everything. That's what that's all I got to say really basically Thanks The problem on the park Dig it How long have you been homeless Sam three years Yeah, the homeless person Why am I a homeless person? Well, I had a choice at home. It was either to stay home and be abused Or find out what was outside and didn't have any money or anything. So I came to the streets That's why I'm homeless and what what's it like? What's it like? well first Well until this came along at first it was really scary for me because I didn't know anybody so I got to know people and Well, I feel lonely a lot Or at least I did till I came here really but it's like I felt lonely and I felt like I was fighting alone and nobody cared whether You know about me You know So It was real hard. Oh Do you find the homeless community to be tight-knit? At this point, yeah, I mean we all come together and we're all fighting for it's not just for one one person for themselves but it's all for everybody, you know and You know, we know it's gonna be a hard fight and a few of us may get what we need like I know my needs have been met and as soon as I find a place I will be a Unsectioning and But I can't Turn my back on these people because they're my family more than they've been here for me more than my own family has so Do you think this encampment will have some good results? Yeah, it has I mean we're getting you know attention and Maybe not from the people higher up but from the people we're trying to get right now You know like welfare coming down and talking to us You know we can't expect to take a mile right now ask for a mile to get it, but we're going inch by inch And I think we're getting an inch here maybe two, you know And you were talking before about that you have had several jobs Yeah, I've had several jobs, but due to my emotional disorder, which is post-traumatic stress disorder Which I have because of childhood traumas. I cannot hold them down. I emotionally break down either go into flashbacks of past and I caught right there or I make a mistake and I learned that it was wrong to make a mistake and so Hear my parents You know what they've always said to me in the past about making mistakes and I fall apart You said that you're you have a section 8 housing certificate. Yeah, how long did it take you to get that? It took me Well, I've been out of the streets for three years. So here I am three years later, and I've got it, but it From the time I got SSI I'd say about a year and a half really It's already didn't come from the housing authorities. It came from a street worker You know and she's helped me out a great deal in the past month Do you have anything else you'd like to add about your experience here at the past week? All my experience here. I mean, I think these people are are great. I've never seen a group of people That I mean I've been in the shelters for like three years and I've seen people Just sitting there not knowing what to do getting tired of fighting and all of a sudden More came in and more. I mean he's been absolutely wonderful and he's like a father to me, but it's like We got together because we know if we went to any of the outside people There wasn't much I could do so we got together and decided that One Voice wasn't going to work. We needed all of us. So we're all here and we're all fighting For and away everybody's needs just one particular person's and it's great because you know and everybody here is Dedicated to this dedicated to each other and They're a fun loving group. They really are and we're people just like anybody else and we're trying to get Other people in the outside community and these businesses to see that and that you know, we can't just get up and get a job because You know like child abuse and divorce and all this stuff is an everyday occurrence and it's lost its meaning But for the people it's happened to it's been a tragedy a disaster in their lives that brought him here But right here. They can see we're fighting and we're asking for help if we're told to go halfway and we'll be met Some of us have gone halfway and we weren't met. So we're asking where these people are You know and some few few of them have come out. So we are getting gaining some ground You know and that's quite an accomplishment Thank you. Yeah Go ahead sitting into the Sun like this you want to move is that all right? Yeah, you can move over here Are we all right? Yeah Let me just get back out of there There you go stuff on my eyes Okay Like I said, I have a few more comments to make first people first place people don't realize how easy it is to get on the road to being homeless I'm going to tell you a story. It's a sad story, but it's a true story Many people don't even realize that all they need to do is get a bump on their head or something and and start acting a little weird because of Something that's happened to their brain and their family will just disregard them and you know push them out of sight One such woman is is a woman named Sylvia She had a tumor in her brain And for many for several years now, she's been walking the streets and and walking around and Becoming more and more outrageous in her in her actions things like wetting her clothes and stuff like that Getting up and going to the bathroom, but because her brain Couldn't functions enough to get her inside the bathroom. She wet her bridges right there All the time this raising tumor in her in her brain was creating these problems yet She wandered around for for many months and and got little or nothing from our mental institutions or Or things and she was deathly afraid of Waterbury because she was afraid that Waterbury is going to kill her Unfortunately, she went to Waterbury and they discovered she had a tumor in her brain there They rushed them the medical center hospital and she died from a brain tumor. She died two weeks ago Rest in peace Sylvia the road down Can take many past Some of us turned to alcohol some of us turned to drugs some of us turned to Mental problems and rather than taking and looking at our situation many of us arrived down here on the bottom Through one trauma or another I Had the trauma of losing my family after 23 years They all just up and left at one time. I Discovered afterwards it was because I was unable to find work and when I did find work. I could only get minimum wage This is up in the Northeast Kingdom I became more and more outraged my situation and frustrated my situation Became more and more picky with my family and more my argument with my family Finally my wife was an independent person Decided that she's had enough and she and the kids all took off As she left with a four month old baby. In fact, I have a grandson that's older than my son The way that happens is that you have an older boy Who has a son and then you have a son after him and my son my youngest son is four years old my oldest is 26 today We're making we're really making an issue here because we think that American population is being deceived by our government They're always pretending that they're solving the problem and they send a lot of money down to solve the problem But it always ends up in staff for positions and little goes to the problem itself With we're tired of waiting for government programs to come by to help us But we're asking for is a research firm where we can help ourselves where we can be part of something where we can be Part of our own family if there is such a thing as a homeless family as you've seen today you've seen Young people you've seen veterans like myself. You've seen families Here today that are all homeless and all getting that way For minimum wage and and lack of good-paying jobs I guess that's all I have to say and thank you